BHOPAL, January 7: Madhya Pradesh government has decided to consider oldest woman member in a family as head of the family. The name of oldest woman would be printed on ration cards as head of family. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday.
In case there is no woman member in the family above the age of 18 years, only then will a man be counted as the head of the family. However, in such cases, as soon as a woman member attains the age of 18, she would be considered as head of family.
This change was made as a part of state’s effort to streamline Madhya Pradesh Public Distribution System (Control) Order-2014.
According to new rule, ration cards will be provided physically or electronically in prescribed format to eligible families. Government claimed provision of bio-metric distribution system has been initiated in the districts of Burhanpur, Hoshangabad, Harda and Khandwa where it has also been linked connected to Aadhar. Cabinet also amended norms pertaining to number and places of fair price shops and decided every village panchayat will have a fair price shop and in the urban areas there will be a ration shop per 800 families.
One-third of fair price shops in every rural and urban area will be allotted to women’s institutions and self-help groups enlisted as cooperative societies and forest management committees.
Task of transporting material to fair price shops will now be done by state civil supplies corporation and role of lead societies in the process has been abolished.
Cabinet decided to continue extending loans at zero % interest rate by primary credit societies through cooperative banks for farmers with good repayment records.
